Dale Earnhardt Jr. Wins Pole Position For New NASCAR Game Cover

There’s a new version of Activision’s NASCAR racing game due in stores this fall, and NASCAR The Game: Inside Line promises to give player the thrill of Sprint Cup competition, without the hassle of figuring out where to park the transporters between races.

We previously told you that the game would deliver a new career mode as well as 23 officially-licensed race tracks, and it also promises “realistic race weekends.” We’re not sure if you’ll actually have to pee in a cup in order to play, but you may want to avoid taking any “training aids” that a friend hands you, just in case.

To encourage fan participation, the developers ran a “Race for the Cover” contest, allowing people to vote on the driver chosen for the cover of the game. In what’s been described as a narrow-margin win, Dale Earnhardt Jr. beat out second-place Kasey Kahne in the final round of voting. In all, some 750,000 votes were cast.

Getting your picture on the cover of a video game may be good for your ego, but it’s also good for your sponsors. As Earnhardt puts it, “An added benefit of being featured on the cover is the opportunity for all of my sponsors, especially the National Guard, to reach more than a million NASCAR fans of all ages through this exciting new game.”